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For those readers unfamiliar with Sam & Max: Freelance Police (and I counted myself as one until recently), Sam and Max are two manic, anthropomorphic cartoon characters—Sam, a six-foot dog, and Max, a three-foot “rabbity-thing”—who fit perfectly into this, the ADHD generation. And by ADHD, I’m not simply referring to the disorder suffered by kids here. Because I have to admit that I fell in love with these two over-caffeinated supernatural crime fighters (and Geek, the little red-headed girl who creates gadgets and weapons in their basement) as soon as I read the back of the DVD.
However, be warned that the animation—and the frenzied nature of the show—requires the viewer to take it in small doses. I could only watch two or three episodes at a time, as my brain just couldn’t handle the over-stimulation. My wife suggested that we clear our minds after the alien, Lactose the Intolerant, attacked our heroes in “The Second Show Ever.” And this is when I discovered that watching two to three episodes at a time is plenty for one adult sitting.
So who will this cartoon appeal to? Well, of course, there are the kids. However, there’s much (both visually and verbally) in the 25 smartly-written and articulate episodes of this series that the average youngster will not pick up on—postmodern allusions to Planet of the Apes and 2001: A Space Odyssey being just the beginning. The young brain will lock onto the irreverent and psychotic nature of the main characters, but all the meta-references will race by unappreciated. If you (and by “you,” I mean the adults out there) were a fan of the Animaniacs cartoon series from about a decade ago, you know what to expect: rude, crude, and cram-packed with randomness. But, oh, so much fun!
The other demographic that will no doubt dive into this unbalanced and chaotic slice entertainment is the self-aware comic book and cartoon fanboys who religiously watch the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. Sam & Max has “beer party cult favorite” written all over it. Quotable one-liners abound in every one of the season’s episodes. For instance: when an armed gang storms into a convenience store, they demand a couple of plastic Elvis-head mugs because, and I quote, “we want to drink from the neck-hole of the king.”
The most appealing aspect of this crazily comic cartoon series, though, is that it doesn’t condescend to children. The main characters are cute and obnoxiously hilarious—as is the writing. Is this series a parody or a satire? Who knows! But I guarantee that if you watch it with your kids, in the near future, when they gain a better working knowledge of pop culture, they’ll look back on this series and see it from a totally different (but just as over-stimulated) perspective.
